Blogcritics » Loretta Dillonhttp://blogcritics.org
The critical lens on today's culture & entertainmentSun, 02 Aug 2015 14:57:29 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3The Anthony Sowell Murders: And Then There Were 10http://blogcritics.org/the-anthony-sowell-murders-and-then/
http://blogcritics.org/the-anthony-sowell-murders-and-then/#commentsWed, 04 Nov 2009 07:19:29 +0000Cleveland, Ohio has its first serial killer since the unsolved “Torso Murders” back during the heyday of “Untouchable” Eliot Ness. While Ness never discovered the perp of that mysterious string of killings, not for lack of trying, the opposite situation exists with accused multiple murderer Anthony Sowell.

Sowell was released from a 15-year prison sentence he had served for a 1990 rape conviction. He returned to East Cleveland to live with an elderly aunt who, according to somewhat unreliable sources, moved to a nursing home soon after. Sowell registered as a sex offender and was supposedly visited by police on a regular basis. This claim seems dubious, now.

Since the first six bodies were found in Sowell’s home October 29, the community has been accusing Cleveland police of ignoring numerous missing person reports; complaints by several women in the neighborhood of assault, attempted rape, and kidnapping; and reports of putrid odors emanating from Sowell’s house since at least 2007. A sausage-making facility next door was blamed for the lingering stench.

Besieged by bad publicity and the unprecedented enormity of the crime, Cleveland Police Chief McGrath defended the local precinct and offered: “Police will not be surprised if nobody filed missing-persons reports on some of the people.”

What about the ones for whom there were missing person reports? Several neighbors who fear their loved one is a victim have spoken to the media and claim they made reports, put up flyers, and contacted the police without hearing any updates.

Violent crime in Cleveland has decreased substantially in the past decade, as it has around the country, and while the east side neighborhood where Sowell committed these blatant, in-your-face acts is not the worst or most dangerous neighborhood in town, it deserves more diligence. Was it because the victims are likely all African-American women, many of whom may have indulged in some controlled substances from time to time? Was it because the authorities routinely dismiss “missing person” reports on people living on the “fringe”? Maybe the issue is not race but rather socioeconomics. There’s no money in investigating missing persons, just lots of paperwork and time-consuming interviews of the neighbors. There’s much more revenue and glamour in drug busts and traffic tickets.

Some angry neighbors, who are becoming even more outraged as the body count grows, are accusing the CPD of negligence, indifference, and incompetence, especially now that the victim count is up to ten, and possibly eleven, with the discovery of a skull in a bucket in the house. The mayor was spared a reelection loss on Tuesday and may have dodged a bullet, but the police chief has some ’splainin’ to do. Especially when we read that it took “several weeks” to obtain a search warrant after the most recent (September 22) accusation of assault and rape was reported against Sowell.

Several weeks? Heck, we know from watching Law and Order that you can get a search warrant in an hour. Any judge in Cleveland would have signed one after reading Sowell’s arrest record and learning that he had been released in 2005 after doing a 15-year stint for rape. Sowell was finally arrested Saturday, October 31 and is being held without bail.

So, who will win the blame game when more bodies are found? And it’s pretty likely they will be, considering Sowell’s history of violence, drug use, and predatory habits; yet, he’s been out of prison for four years without incurring so much as a disorderly conduct charge by Cleveland’s finest.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/the-anthony-sowell-murders-and-then/feed/7Circumcision: Let Your Boy(s) Decide?http://blogcritics.org/circumcision-let-your-boys-decide/
http://blogcritics.org/circumcision-let-your-boys-decide/#commentsSat, 29 Aug 2009 10:40:22 +0000The subject of circumcision is back in the news since the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recently published a theory that circumcision reduces the spread of HIV in Africa.

"We have a significant H.I.V. epidemic in this country [in Africa], and we really need to look carefully at any potential intervention that could be another tool in the toolbox we use to address the epidemic,” Dr. Peter Kilmarx, chief of epidemiology for the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention, told the New York Times. “What we’ve heard from our consultants is that there would be a benefit for infants from infant circumcision, and that the benefits outweigh the risks."

According to various reports, “over 70 percent of adult American men are already circumcised, though circumcision of newborns has dropped to about 65 percent in recent decades” and is expected to drop more as fewer pediatricians recommend the procedure as routine. In fact, after my only son was born in 2000, my pediatrician, a veteran of 30 years in her practice, shrugged off the idea when I asked her, “Should I have him circumcised? Is it necessary?” She said I could if I wanted to, but that no, it wasn’t necessary. Although all the males in my family were circumcised, I decided not to have my son undergo the procedure and instead allow him to make that decision for himself when he was an adult. After all, it’s his body, not mine. I could not justify the pain and potential risk of having him subjected to something as sensitive as circumcision when he had no say in the matter.

For whatever bizarre reason, Rush Limbaugh decided to weigh in on the circumcision issue on his radio program by stating, "We're in a world where the tiniest measure of government suggestion about sexual health equals a full onslaught against privacy."

Apparently, Limbaugh is unaware of the irony of his remarks, considering his views on abortion; nonetheless, I have to agree with him for a change. Since most of the health claims of circumcision have been refuted over the years, and modern sanitation and the prevalence of condoms have reduced the risk of retaining one’s foreskin, the only reasons a parent would opt for circumcising their baby boy would be to honor a religious tradition or for aesthetic preferences. I won’t characterize circumcision as “genital mutilation,” although it can be argued that it is precisely that, but I will point out that uncircumcised males (which represent a majority of non-Muslim and non-Jewish males around the world) enjoy higher sexual stimulation and their partners report greater satisfaction. Besides, the foreskin protects and lubricates, and like tonsils, appendices, and spleens, serves an important function.

I didn't want my son one day to accuse me of ruining his sex life. As a mother of four, I can only take so much guilt.

Any intensely personal decision parents make regarding their baby’s upbringing, education and medical care, whether or not to circumcise is better left behind closed doors and not in the forefront of public debate, especially by someone like Rush Limbaugh, who is statistically pretty likely to be already circumcised, and nobody — I mean nobody — wants to go there. Sorry.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/circumcision-let-your-boys-decide/feed/51The Mackey Backlashhttp://blogcritics.org/the-mackey-backlash/
http://blogcritics.org/the-mackey-backlash/#commentsThu, 27 Aug 2009 07:30:49 +0000Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey received some unexpected backlash for an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal which enumerated “Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit”. Before I address some of the points Mackey makes in his piece, I would like to point out that I am the perfect example of Mackey’s biggest customer: a health-conscious, ecologically-minded, post-Boomer consumer who prefers organic and humane farming practices to traditional supermarket offerings; someone who has been touting a “green” lifestyle long before it was de rigeur; and someone who doesn’t mind spending a little more for locally-grown produce or the nice choice of bakery and prepared foods available at Whole Foods.

Mackey’s list reads like the Corporatists' Playbook of Healthcare. Why would he want to alienate his core constituency — humanitarians, hippies, vegetarians, macrobiotic dieters, Budhhists, and well-heeled liberals? Why would he pander to the people who are least likely to shop at his stores? Is this a new marketing strategy?

Mackey described himself in 2005 as “a businessman and a free market libertarian” and has made campaign contributions to libertarian candidates, according to public records. Yet, despite this admission of libertarianism, Mackey has made no comments on record (that I can find after an exhaustive search) that condemn the invasion of Iraq, the continued quagmire in Afghanistan, war-profiteering of companies like Halliburton and Blackwater, or of the TARP bailout last September; all of which contributed exponentially to the national debt and deficits.

He did spend a lot of time on Yahoo chat rooms using an anonymous handle that promoted the financial health of Whole Foods and undermined his target buyout, Wild Oats. Whole Foods procured Wild Oats and eliminated its main competition.

My problem with Mackey is not with his politics, but rather the ill-informed and bad ideas he promotes in order to undermine the single-payer plan Obama and most of the voters want on the table for health care reform.

Mackey promotes Health Savings Accounts (sold in your neighborhood bank), changes in tort laws (pro-business, anti-victim), allowing individuals to get tax breaks on premiums (tax breaks already exist for people paying their own health insurance), making health insurance like “cafeteria” benefits for the consumer to decide “what is covered” and not the law. For example, consumers can opt out of cancer coverage or maternity coverage and then, with bad luck, get cancer or get pregnant and have to pay for all associated care. As a licensed insurance agent, I can attest that most people not only don't read their policies to know what is already exempt or considered a "pre-existing condition", but most don't expect to get seriously ill and are not prepared for the financial consequences if they do.

Mackey writes:

"Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges."

That’s essentially how medical insurance has worked for the past 50 years, leaving millions uninsured, millions of claims denied, millions of consumers going bankrupt over medical expenses and making health insurance the least competitive, least transparent and least fair product available to us through the free market. It’s not a free market. It’s rigged.

Many bloggers and columnists have expressed outrage over Mackey’s callous plan, a plan that will not be part of any health care bills in a Democratic legislature. But, what is more outrageous than his homage to profit and his ultimately unrealistic worldview is his short-sightedness in alienating his main constituency. Millions of Whole Food customers are now boycotting his store. I hope this is an expensive lesson to Mackey to stay under the radar.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/the-mackey-backlash/feed/111Book Review: Cell by Stephen Kinghttp://blogcritics.org/book-review-cell-by-stephen-king1/
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-cell-by-stephen-king1/#commentsTue, 05 Sep 2006 22:50:10 +0000It used to be years ago I could pick up a new Stephen King novel and look forward to a thrilling escape for a week. King tended to write tomes at least 500 pages long, filled with complex back-stories, parallel plots, flawed and likeable characters, and wry social commentary. Not so with his latest release, Cell, which is as disappointing as a 45-second roller-coaster you wait in line two hours to ride.

Throughout the narrative, mostly told from the point of view of a comic-strip artist Clay Riddell, seeps an underlying cynicism and indifference, unlike most of King’s better works. Gratuitous violence and gore clutter up the already abbreviated storyline, as though King had surrendered to sound bites and podcasts for the short attention span of the audience he cautiously parodies.

The premise had potential: a “pulse” that reprograms people’s brains, compared to erasing the disk on a computer, is generated simultaneously to every person’s cell phone, creating a subhuman culture of cortex-driven animals who display various behavior, at one time of birds, at another of beasts. The reader is never certain of the origin of the pulse, who developed it, what its purpose was, or how many people were affected. These are just a few of the gaping holes in the storyline that beg explanation.

Departing from all good fiction, including his own, King completely omits a villain in this book. The reader has no idea who the bad guys are, what their agenda is, or whether they suffer any backlash or consequences because of the unpredictable behavior of mind-wiped humans. The “flock” (what the characters call the living dead) becomes the enemy: a sort of nameless, faceless horde of wraiths who were once their friends, spouses, neighbors, or children. It just doesn’t work well at all.

There is only a small ensemble of main characters. The reader follows them from the beginning to the end of the story, but none are well developed save, maybe, Riddell, and even then we are given but snapshots of his life before “the pulse”. If you ever read The Stand, you know King goes into great detail about the background and personality of all the characters, especially the most important participants. Where was that eye for detail in Cell? Where’s the flesh? There was already far too much blood.

I would not have been so disappointed in the ending had King given us more to care about, imagine, and hope for prior to cutting us off like a sudden break in wireless service. Cell left me with the sense of incompletion, disconnection, and frustration imagining what he could have done with this story if he had wanted to.

Rating: 2-1/2 stars, and that half star is only because the dialogue is, as usual, pretty good.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/book-review-cell-by-stephen-king1/feed/2DVD Review: Fahrenheit 9/11http://blogcritics.org/dvd-review-fahrenheit-911/
http://blogcritics.org/dvd-review-fahrenheit-911/#commentsSun, 02 Apr 2006 01:45:02 +0000I may be late to the party, but I finally got around to watching Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 today and I’m glad I waited. I never read the reviews or the hype on either side, and I’m not a big fan of Moore’s, so I had no preconceived notions about the film. I was surprised that his documentary didn’t really focus on the events of September 11 other than to frame them as a pretext for invading Iraq, which any literate person knows by now as an irrefutable fact. I think Moore exploited 9/11 to market his movie, but I don’t think that he would be averse to any conspiracy theories that suggest that 9/11 was an inside job. Who knows, maybe he’s working on a new film to highlight the 9/11 Truth movement; if not, he should be.

I remember watching Roger and Me on video back in the summer of 1994. That inspired a trip to Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan, to see for myself the wasteland portrayed in his first (and perhaps most authentic) documentary. Moore uses some of the same techniques in Fahrenheit 9/11 that he used in Roger: interviews with senior citizens, the disenfranchised poor, various authorities, and a family of military veterans, interspersed with comic relief in spoofs, pop music backdrops, and unflattering innuendo of his target. In Roger and Me it was Roger Smith, CEO of General Motors; in Fahrenheit 9/11 it’s George W. Bush. Both are portrayed as avaricious, secretive demagogues oblivious to the plight of the common man. By all accounts, this is an accurate assessment.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is even more relevant now than it was in 2004 because of the subsequent release of the disappointing and disingenuous 9/11 Commission Report, and the surfeit of evidence that points to counterfeit intelligence and deliberate duplicity that led our nation to war. It’s also more disturbing because the situation in Iraq is worse than it was two years ago, the death toll is rising, and there is no end in sight.

Critics of the film have produced a rebuttal entitled, Fahrenhype 9/11, featuring conservative shills like Ann Coulter and Dick Morris, claiming to “tell the truth about terrorism.” Director Alan Peterson’s answer to Moore’s award-winning film is utterly laughable in light of all we have learned in recent months about the so-called “war on terror” and the role of high-level government conspirators who likely engineered the ultimate Wag the Dog scenario to launch their arrogant campaign of global domination. But, it’s always enlightening to see both sides of the story, especially once you’re informed. Unfortunately, Fahrenhype 9/11 is already an anachronism, whereas Fahrenheit 9/11 should be required viewing of any concerned citizen.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/dvd-review-fahrenheit-911/feed/4Book Review: The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffinhttp://blogcritics.org/book-review-the-new-pearl-harbor/
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-the-new-pearl-harbor/#commentsSat, 04 Mar 2006 22:09:39 +0000After three years of discussing murder cases on my blog, I have learned a lot about “circumstantial evidence” and how it is given the same probative weight in a trial as “direct evidence.” Circumstantial evidence includes a myriad of interconnecting facts and situations from which inferences or conclusions can be made. In isolation, one link of circumstantial evidence does not make or break a case; but taken in the context of other related events, many coincidences or decisions form a composite chain of evidence.
[ADBLOCKHERE]Direct evidence includes eyewitness statements and valid photographs or videos that capture events, as well as taped confessions. Timelines, maps, models, and scientific tests that recreate situations or explain the properties of motion, thermodynamics, fires, and ballistics are often used in trials to demonstrate how an event could or could not have occurred based on inelastic data: time, the laws of physics, mechanical realities, and limitations of the human body.

The Scholars for 9/11 Truth and other scientific organizations have compiled an overwhelming “preponderance of evidence,” including circumstantial and direct, that disputes the official findings of the 9/11 Commission. In his 2004 release The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin, one of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, presents a thorough and very readable exposé of government complicity in the events of September 11. Griffin’s shocking and well researched work is recommended reading for anyone who is confused about disparate conspiracy theories or needs a place to begin. Griffin presents a nice summary of the evidence in The New Pearl Harbor that thoughtful readers would agree call for a full investigation.

The number of unlikely coincidences that occurred just prior to and after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have already filled pages of books and web sites, but let’s review a few especially interesting ones presented in Griffin’s book:

Plans to invade Afghanistan and Iraq were already in place before September 2001. The attack on 9/11 provided the pretext for invading Afghanistan (and later Iraq), but the geopolitical motives were primarily based on protecting and accessing vast sources of gas and crude oil. There is a plethora of evidence for this, not least of which is the blatant imperialist agenda of “The Project for the New American Century,” aka PNAC.

”War Games” were taking place on the morning of 9/11 that caused confusion with our otherwise vigilant air defense. We can either accept that our sophisticated and well-trained military was sleeping at the wheel, or we can believe it was given commands that deterred the standard operating procedures for intercepting hijacked aircraft.

That Flight 77, if it really was Flight 77, was permitted to enter air space over Washington, DC without meeting any interference from the most heavily defended buildings on the planet over an hour after the first plane struck New York.

Pentagon officials, FBI agents, government officials and various celebrities were warned not to fly on commercial airlines that week.

Two steel skyscrapers collapsed after less than two hours in a smoldering but oxygen-deprived fire in free-fall speed of ten seconds for the first time in history. A third building, WTC7, collapsed at 5:30 that afternoon in under six seconds without the accelerant of spilled jet fuel or having been hit by an aircraft. One section of WTC7 had been designed as a bunker for Mayor Giuliani, with reinforced windows and walls, and a separate air and water supply for emergencies. What are the odds?

Muhammad Atta, alleged mastermind and pilot of Flight 11 (the plane that hit the North Tower), received $100,000 from the head of the Pakistani ISI just days before 9/11. Why the payoff if he was about to commit suicide? Why would Atta pack luggage with incriminating information and leave it in the airport in Boston? Why would Atta even need luggage? How did Atta’s passport miraculously survive the crash and inferno of the North Tower and float unscathed, later to be found on the street below by the FBI?

Speaking of luggage, there was no luggage or any evidence of human remains found in the crash of Flight 93 or Flight 77. Debris from Flight 93 that “crashed” in Pennsylvania was found strewn up to eight miles away from the site, and not a single identifiable piece of a Boeing 757 was found in the rubble of the Pentagon. The engines on a 757 are nine feet in diameter and made of steel. Are we supposed to believe that they disintegrated in a fire? Where are the wings? Where is the tail?

The Patriot Act in all its glory appeared within weeks of 9/11, as if it had been sitting in a Word file just waiting to be dated and distributed.

Osama bin Laden was recovering from a kidney problem in a US hospital in Dubai the July before the attacks. Did the CIA continue to harbor bin Laden after 9/11? There is evidence to suspect that he and other Afghanistan rebels were escorted out of Afghanistan to Pakistan during the US invasion. Never mind that bin Laden’s family was allowed to fly out of the US to Saudi Arabia while the rest of us were grounded. Links between the Bush and bin Laden families have been documented facts for years.

If there are practical explanations for the questions that have arisen from the official 9/11 Commission report that can be borne out by science, documentation, testimony and common sense, then why aren’t we getting them? Why did the Commission instead omit and distort many facts that pointed to (at the very least) complicity among government officials and massive obfuscation? The New Pearl Harbor asks these and many other disturbing questions.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/book-review-the-new-pearl-harbor/feed/14Book Review: For Lacihttp://blogcritics.org/book-review-for-laci/
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-for-laci/#commentsSat, 28 Jan 2006 18:03:42 +0000Traditionally, true crime books are written in retrospect often years after a trial. With the advent of the Internet, however, numerous crime forums, message boards, and Web logs created the opportunity to follow a criminal case live from the earliest news reports through the verdict and aftermath.

One subject that consistently appealed to a large, diverse and dedicated audience was the Laci Peterson murder case. Mainstream media following the trial failed to see the spiritual, cultural, and metaphorical significance of the case. They didn’t appreciate Laci’s influence or the lessons to be learned in Peterson’s modus operandi. Those of us who were fortunate to see beyond painted plywood sets of Peterson’s defense and could distill the truth from superficial syllogism were rewarded when the jury, the only people who really mattered, shared the vision. As time goes by, and bad books on the case come and go, we can hope that thoughtful viewers, misled and misinformed throughout the trial, will learn the truth behind the Hollywood hype.

In Sharon Rocha’s book, For Laci, eager followers of the Peterson case finally witnessed, first-hand, the private and extraordinary experiences of Laci Peterson’s mother and family while her husband Scott continued to baffle a nation. Sharon’s account, describing her overwhelming disillusionment, rage, disbelief, confusion, and ultimately the courage to be Laci’s voice, aptly summarized the divergent emotions and prejudices many of us applied to this story. Her thorough testimonial validated our bold assumptions about so many things, such as Laci’s personality, how she would have reacted to her husband’s affair, the peculiar Peterson family dynamics, and Scott’s bizarre affect from the early days of the investigation to the moment of his final sentencing.

We embraced Laci as a figurative sister, daughter, mother, and ourselves betrayed by love; she was a woman in whom we could vicariously invest our aspirations of fulfillment and domestic perfection. Why else would she attract such an enormous following for over two years? Most spousal murder cases are merely a tragically familiar blip on the crime radar; Laci’s case captured the attention of millions. In Sharon’s book, Laci proved to be exactly as we imagined her.

For Laci traces her life as a happy, irrepressible child, her bout with a large tumor that required delicate surgery, a typical ’80s adolescence, her first serious romance with the (now infamous) Kent Gain; through college, meeting and marrying Scott, moving back to Modesto, and eventually joyfully expecting her first baby. Sharon paints Laci’s experiences with the vivid brush of a loving mother, giving us an intimate and bittersweet appreciation for Laci’s essence. Sharon’s narrative is an accurate and grief-stricken record of the devastation of her daughter’s murder from the first phone call when Scott said Laci was “missing,” to her dramatic, tearful victim impact statement at the penalty phase of his trial. Sharon’s retelling made us cry, seethe, wonder, and even occasionally laugh, along with answering most of the important questions we had about the case.

Predictable, yet nonetheless shocking, was the sickening crush for Sharon to learn the horrible truth of Peterson’s pathology beneath the mask he presented to Laci and her family and friends. Sharon suddenly realized, when attempting to describe Scott to the police and press, that despite eight years of interaction she didn’t really know him at all.

To counter the wildly inaccurate histrionics of cable TV coverage, news stories and other books about Peterson that presented little more than a glorified soap opera, Sharon depicts the crucial events from the perspective of an insider to the investigation and as a representative of the victim. There cannot be a more reliable report; For Laci is the ultimate chronicle of the case.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/book-review-for-laci/feed/1Book Review: Matt Dalton’s Presumed Guiltyhttp://blogcritics.org/book-review-matt-daltons-presumed-guilty/
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-matt-daltons-presumed-guilty/#commentsTue, 24 Jan 2006 05:25:13 +0000The first sentence of a book often sets the tone of the author’s work. In Matt Dalton’s exercise in futility, Presumed Guilty, his first sentence reveals (perhaps unintentionally) the reason his book fails as a treatise proclaiming Scott Peterson’s “factual innocence”:

The jury moved into the jury box.

Yes: the jury.

The jury at Peterson’s trial for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, 27, decided his guilt. Not obsessed television viewers, not the author, not the press, not the Modesto police that investigated and arrested the defendant, not the crowd that gathered in outrage outside the Stanislaus County jail when Peterson was arrested, and not the media. The jury in Redwood City, California, heard all the testimony, was privy to the voluminous exhibits and documentation, and given instructions on the law and its obligation to it.

Dalton, who worked for Peterson’s defense team for less than six months, should have read his first sentence and realized, as an officer of the court, what his role was in this case. He was merely an investigator hired by the defense team, and a temporary one at that. His duty to his former client, to the California Bar, and in the service of justice was to protect confidentiality and adhere to the judge’s orders. By releasing this book, he violated any number of rules of ethics and insulted readers’ intelligence in the process.

Peterson’s highly publicized but woefully misrepresented trial was the most important aspect of this case and closed or negated all the alleged holes that Dalton accounts in his book. For chief defense counsel Mark Geragos to overtly ignore exculpatory evidence that Dalton claims existed would have been the height of incompetence. While I may think Geragos is a pretty bad lawyer (and a fountain of comedy fodder), I don’t believe he would intentionally omit anything relevant that would have helped acquit his client; real proof of that would have meant disbarment.

As a former prosecutor, Dalton is keenly aware of the laws of evidence. He knows that none of his allusions to a third-party defense had any merit. Otherwise, there would have been a showing at the trial. His book is, at best, glorified tabloid fodder with no nexus established between the behavior of local thugs and dubious statistics on satanic cult activity in the Modesto area and Laci Peterson’s murder. Over a third of the repetitive and irrelevant material is devoted to discussing disparate criminal activities in the central valley area and anecdotes about cults; yet, with all the investigation techniques at his disposal, Dalton never finds a single probative issue that would have withstood the scrutiny of a court of law.

The book is filled with misinformation and inaccuracies, not least of which are Dalton’s statement that the baby’s body was cremated (it was not; he was buried with his mother) and that Amy Rocha had pizza and watched a movie with Laci and Scott the night of December 23. More disinformation, out-of-context exerpts from police reports, anonymous witnesses who are never directly quoted, and impotent defense spin render this book, for those with even a passing acquaintance with the case, a complete farce.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/book-review-matt-daltons-presumed-guilty/feed/23A Million Little Suckershttp://blogcritics.org/a-million-little-suckers/
http://blogcritics.org/a-million-little-suckers/#commentsWed, 11 Jan 2006 00:38:10 +0000In his unremarkable life as an average white, middle-class, keg party-loving, self-absorbed frat boy who never grew up, James Frey has a lot in common with many of my former classmates and neighbors in suburban Ohio. But, from his sensational autobiography, A Million Little Pieces, that has been recently exposed as fiction, Frey bears little resemblance to people I know who have entered treatment programs and meetings of AA or NA with the kind of alcohol and drug addiction he describes. Frey’s unconventional recovery method is not only unrealistic and possibly fatal to anyone suffering from devastating substance abuse; it reveals him as the worst kind of fraud.

Throughout the innumerable suspension of facts, logic, and reality in Frey’s yarn, he pretends to be a junkie and a notorious criminal “wanted” in several states and besieged by a legendary past that rivals the fear and loathing of Hunter Thompson. (I doubt the late Thompson ever read Frey’s book, but if he had, he would have laughed out loud at its sophomoric absurdity.) Apparently, Frey’s imaginary saga was originally proposed as fiction and rejected by 17 publishers; presumably because even bad fiction has to have some semblance of credibility. When Frey resubmitted the work as an autobiography, Nan Talese at Doubleday saw her Judith Regan opportunity and seized it.

Doubleday (and later, Oprah Winfrey) touted the book as shocking, relentlessly honest, and other sickening superlatives that would catapult the author into super stardom. That Frey was able to scam Winfrey (and all her producers) is astonishing; that he would pass muster with any friend of Bill W’s is utterly impossible.

The Smoking Gun published an exposé on the numerous lies it uncovered in Frey’s book, but one of the most glaring ones that belies his claims of juvenile delinquency and party warrior status is the fact that he attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and graduated in four years. There is no way on earth Frey could have been accepted to Denison had he been a fraction of the problem child he boasts of being, much less achieved the GPA required to maintain good standing at the university, regardless of his father’s status as an executive. At least two famous millionaires’ sons flunked out of The College of Wooster and Baldwin-Wallace, mirror institutions to Denison, during my tenure. Frey’s bold admission that he was “an alcoholic and addict for 10 years” by the time he was 23, as he claims in his speeches and advertisements for his book, is simply ludicrous. Do the math, Oprah.

While Frey is laughing all the way to the bank, millions of readers have been duped. Thousands of substance abusers who think Frey’s “Hold On” slogan for staying sober is an easier, softer way to recover than attending meetings, therapy, finding a sponsor, practicing rigorous honesty and avoiding temptation are flirting with disaster. There may be alternatives to the 12-step program in achieving long-term sobriety, but none of them entail preternatural will-power, manipulating gullible people, or flaunting your abstinence in bars and drug houses. The only person who could do that is a narcissistic con who was never an addict in the first place.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/a-million-little-suckers/feed/30Should Tookie be Spared?http://blogcritics.org/should-tookie-be-spared/
http://blogcritics.org/should-tookie-be-spared/#commentsSun, 11 Dec 2005 18:19:34 +0000The prevailing controversy surrounding Stanley “Tookie” Williams’ impending execution on December 13 is a good example of why the death penalty should be eliminated in states like California. Williams has been on death row for over 20 years. He can thank the state for his longevity, since he probably wouldn’t have made it to age 30 on the streets of Los Angeles as a founding member of the Crips. Somewhere around 1993, Williams officially renounced his gang affiliation (although his writings tend to belie this claim), and he has spent his ample leisure time penning anti-gang books for children. As a result of his efforts (and an aggressive public relations campaign), Williams was twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

For argument’s sake, let’s give Williams the benefit of the doubt and accept his redemption and humanitarian mission as sincere. Does this mean that whenever a condemned inmate reaches out from prison and affects a group of people in a positive way he merits clemency? What is the point of having capital punishment if the state can discriminate against those poor schmucks with no constituency, friends in high places, literary skills, web sites or fan clubs? Will other gang members on death row take a page from Tookie’s strategy to escape execution?

Since I don’t have access to the trial transcripts of California v. Williams, I can’t verify any of the testimony of the trial described in articles supporting both sides of the story. According to most accounts, there were five witnesses to the four murders Williams was convicted of committing. Williams allegedly confessed (bragged) to several Crips and knew too much about the murders not to have been directly involved. It is reasonable to conclude that the lead prosecutor was monomaniacal, and that the venue change to Torrance (a predominantly white community) and the removal of the only three black jurors on the panel was prejudicial to the defendant. Nonetheless, these issues were denied on appeal. Evidence that Williams was actually innocent of the crimes was never sufficiently demonstrated, so it really boiled down to whether or not he received a fair trial.

However, I do have access to Williams’ “apology” and his essays published on a web site dedicated to his work behind bars that, by reading between the lines, may reveal his true mindset.

Here is the opening of his “apology”:

Twenty-five years ago when I created the Crips youth gang with Raymond Lee Washington in South Central Los Angeles, I never imagined Crips membership would one day spread throughout California, would spread to much of the rest of the nation and to cities in South Africa, where Crips copycat gangs have formed.

Call me cynical, but that first sentence smacks of pride. It’s as if he is saying, “Look at the vast empire I helped create!” You would think that an apology would begin with, “I’m sorry.” Not with Tookie. He doesn’t get around to that until the fifth sentence:

So today I apologize to you all — the children of America and South Africa — who must cope every day with dangerous street gangs. I no longer participate in the so-called gangster lifestyle, and I deeply regret that I ever did.

Note that he doesn’t apologize to the victims’ families or anyone specifically whom he harmed during his years of lawlessness. He doesn’t direct his contrition to cops, lawyers, judges, parole officers, prison guards, business owners, city workers, or anyone else whose life he made more difficult from his legacy. No – he apologizes to “the children”. Doesn’t this sound like something Michael Jackson would say?

In his “Letter to Youth #2”, Williams compares the prisoner-guard relationship with that of “master-slave”, evoking the idea that he is a victim of racism instead of his own behavior:

On the other hand, the resemblance of the prisoner to the slave is that both are subjected to strict rules, confined like animals, controlled, often brutalized physically as well as psychologically, and deprived of basic human rights.

The distinct difference Williams fails to point out is that prisoners forfeit their freedom by breaking the law, not because they are bought and sold like chattel. That murderers like Williams deprived their victims of basic human rights is conveniently disregarded. Williams’ comparison falls short of reality even for him, so he goes on to enumerate “modern-day slave traits”, concluding with an allusion of guilt: “A modern-day slave will foolishly commit crimes that cause him to end up behind bars, incarcerated, in mental and physical bondage.”

One of his supporters suggested that because Tookie was an avid body builder and idolized Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor should spare his life. I can see it now: in 15, 20 years, the governor of California is a scratch golfer and Scott Peterson’s groupies use the fact that he was a good golfer as an argument to commute his sentence to life without parole. Or, wait – would that be an avid fisherman?